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[...a constant downward movement...]
Yo yo yo.
So, I may have fallen off the edge of the earth, I may have a ?skip=infinity friends page that I will never go through, I may be out of touch with the cool new fics and the hot hot goss. If you guys want to hook me up to some of that, though, I wouldn't mind at all. I'd rather like that, actually. The RL's crazier than it's ever been, so I still wouldn't expect me to frequent fandom in the near future. ...Unless I do. Anyway. I have new fic. So I hope you will forgive me my trespasses (or my lack thereof).
This fic is for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
groaty and lux__aeterna, because. I stole the title from Douglas Adams, also because. Furthermore, here is a disclaimer: this story is a lie lie lie.
Life, the Universe, and Everything
RPS. Ben Affleck/Casey Affleck. R. Warning: real-people incest.
"And then there is entropy."
Ben would writhe. He loves the feeling of their bodies pressed against each other. Shirtless or naked, Ben backs Casey against the wall. He pulls Casey towards him then wraps his arms around his back in an iron grip, eliminating the extraneous space between them. (It's all extraneous.) Ben would writhe against Casey's body like he's trying to become one being, like making fire with friction, like melting flesh to flesh, like Casey has the softest skin of anyone he's ever known and it must be touched and rubbed and tasted all the time.
Sometimes Ben would notice the way Casey's hair falls over his face or the faraway look in his eyes, the absent-minded touches he leaves on Ben's wrists. It would make him smile and think, "I can't believe I'm with a guy like him."
Except that meant thinking, "I can't believe I'm with my brother."
Most times when Ben notices a new idiosyncrasy, he just kisses Casey and tries not to think about anything, least of all tomorrow.
+
Ben realizes there's a difference between wanting to be loved for who you want to be, and needing to be loved for who you really are. The line is not as fine or blurry as one would think. He remembers reading a music magazine in the kitchen when he had the epiphany, and sharing a bottle with Casey. He remembers that the conversation went, more or less, like this:
"It's not a matter of why I'd do this," said Casey. "This is beyond why."
Later he corrected himself: "I think I just love you, that's all."
And perhaps the issue should have been dropped there, because wouldn't it be wonderful if everything in the world always ended with love? But it wasn't Casey's final answer.
"There's a look that you get on your face that I don't see you make when other people are around," Casey began, "but I digress, kinda."
"What do I look like?"
"...Soft."
"Soft? The hell kinda answer is that?"
There would be a drunken rant to answer that. Ben recognized all the warning signs, including the half-empty (half-full) bottle of Captain Morgan's on the table.
"The point is," said Casey, waving a dismissive hand, "there's a fragility to the human creature. You see some people's fragility all the time, and sometimes you see nothing of it, or little. You, Ben, are part of the latter category. Not everyone can see the cracked little lines inside yourself... Not to say you're made entirely of these cracked little lines, I'm just saying you have them."
In a neutral, humoring tone, Ben said, "Right."
"I don't think you realize it," said Casey. "I said, I don't think you realize how much these cracks define who you are."
"My crack?" said Ben, flippant.
"I see the way you don't fit together sometimes."
What Ben was thinking then was, Fuck that.
He doesn't want to be loved for being a fuck-up. Fuck awkwardness and its supposed charm; Ben could never mix the two, it was always one or the other. Ben wants to be loved because he wrote a fucking wicked movie with his best friend. He wants to be loved for making the best joke in the room, for that spontaneous yet hilarious one-liner no one was expecting. He wants to act, he wants to perform because that is how he has fun. He's a big proponent of the idea -- no, the fact -- that you are most yourself when you're happy. Ben only wants to be himself. He only wants for everyone to see him be himself so they can finally realize that this guy right here is worth their time. He doesn't want to be loved for his weaknesses.
Fuck you, Ben thought, because there is so much more to me than the way I fall apart, and you of all fucking people should know.
And there is a nagging sense of betrayal.
"You can't fool me, Affleck," said Casey, and that was how Ben knew Casey was on the other side of tipsy. Affleck. "I've known you all my life. You're a fuck-up." Casey pushed back his seat, making a grating scraping noise against the floor. He sauntered around to the other side of the table where Ben sat, and he put his hands on his little brother's shoulders. "The best thing," said Casey, and kissed him, a drunken press of lips against lips. "The best thing," he repeated, and kissed him again. Ben parted his lips and Casey dipped his tongue inside. There was that familiar rush in Ben's stomach. A familiar thrill, a thrum of anticipation that he felt to the tips of his fingers, which he rested on Casey's neck, right below the pulse points.
"The best thing in the world is for someone to realize you're a fuck-up," said Casey, unbuttoning Ben's shirt, "and they stay with you anyway."
+
So Ben is a victim of Casey's underdog-philia. He doesn't want to think about that. What he can't help thinking about, though, is how this will end. This thing between them, it's too bad to be true.
Amid the touch of tongues, the taste of semen, the feeling of being inside your other half, there is...
Ben doesn't want to think about this at all.
"There are two theories I have about how the universe works," said Casey. It's morning now. He's doing up his belt but his shirt is still somewhere on the bedroom floor. He paces while talking, while smoking a cigarette, like a character from a trashy novel about lust, life, and alcoholism. "All things being equal, left alone," says Casey, "things either tend towards equilibrium, or towards disorder. You see this everywhere in the world. There are feedback mechanisms in your body--in nature, right?--that maintain a certain stable condition. And then there is entropy."
Casey has somewhere to be today. Brunch meeting, networking, negotiating some minute Ocean's Twelve detail. Ben has the script for some Christmas movie to go through, but he has all day. All weekend, even. The sheets on this bed, Casey's bed, are heavy, and they drape over him and keep him warm as he watches his brother dress and philosophize. Their movements are languid this morning, slowed by the cooling temperature outside and their own procrastination.
"So, all things being equal," says Casey, "left alone, which direction do you think we would go?"
"What?"
"Will we hold the universe together or tear it apart?"
Ben stares at him. "I think..."
I think we will make the universe stand still, is what he's thinking. Ben lazily pulls himself to the foot of the bed, closer to Casey. We will re-organize the space-time continuum, because I can imagine us together and I can imagine us apart, but I refuse to dwell on the transition.
At the edge of the bed, Ben holds out his hand. Casey looks at it, contemplatively, like it's another thing to theorize about. It probably can be, but not in Ben's world.
Casey is late for his brunch meeting and no one cares. Back at the apartment, Ben sits in the living room in his bathrobe, script on his lap, pen in his hand, doodling the lyrics to songs that aren't about heartbreak. Outside, New York hustles and bustles its way through smog and local color, and as Ben watches it all from the window, coffee in hand, he wonders if stability and disintegration can maybe be the same thing.
+
"you realize the sun don't go down/it's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round"
- the flaming lips, 'do you realize?'
[end.]
So, I may have fallen off the edge of the earth, I may have a ?skip=infinity friends page that I will never go through, I may be out of touch with the cool new fics and the hot hot goss. If you guys want to hook me up to some of that, though, I wouldn't mind at all. I'd rather like that, actually. The RL's crazier than it's ever been, so I still wouldn't expect me to frequent fandom in the near future. ...Unless I do. Anyway. I have new fic. So I hope you will forgive me my trespasses (or my lack thereof).
This fic is for
groaty and lux__aeterna, because. I stole the title from Douglas Adams, also because. Furthermore, here is a disclaimer: this story is a lie lie lie.Life, the Universe, and Everything
RPS. Ben Affleck/Casey Affleck. R. Warning: real-people incest.
"And then there is entropy."
Ben would writhe. He loves the feeling of their bodies pressed against each other. Shirtless or naked, Ben backs Casey against the wall. He pulls Casey towards him then wraps his arms around his back in an iron grip, eliminating the extraneous space between them. (It's all extraneous.) Ben would writhe against Casey's body like he's trying to become one being, like making fire with friction, like melting flesh to flesh, like Casey has the softest skin of anyone he's ever known and it must be touched and rubbed and tasted all the time.
Sometimes Ben would notice the way Casey's hair falls over his face or the faraway look in his eyes, the absent-minded touches he leaves on Ben's wrists. It would make him smile and think, "I can't believe I'm with a guy like him."
Except that meant thinking, "I can't believe I'm with my brother."
Most times when Ben notices a new idiosyncrasy, he just kisses Casey and tries not to think about anything, least of all tomorrow.
+
Ben realizes there's a difference between wanting to be loved for who you want to be, and needing to be loved for who you really are. The line is not as fine or blurry as one would think. He remembers reading a music magazine in the kitchen when he had the epiphany, and sharing a bottle with Casey. He remembers that the conversation went, more or less, like this:
"It's not a matter of why I'd do this," said Casey. "This is beyond why."
Later he corrected himself: "I think I just love you, that's all."
And perhaps the issue should have been dropped there, because wouldn't it be wonderful if everything in the world always ended with love? But it wasn't Casey's final answer.
"There's a look that you get on your face that I don't see you make when other people are around," Casey began, "but I digress, kinda."
"What do I look like?"
"...Soft."
"Soft? The hell kinda answer is that?"
There would be a drunken rant to answer that. Ben recognized all the warning signs, including the half-empty (half-full) bottle of Captain Morgan's on the table.
"The point is," said Casey, waving a dismissive hand, "there's a fragility to the human creature. You see some people's fragility all the time, and sometimes you see nothing of it, or little. You, Ben, are part of the latter category. Not everyone can see the cracked little lines inside yourself... Not to say you're made entirely of these cracked little lines, I'm just saying you have them."
In a neutral, humoring tone, Ben said, "Right."
"I don't think you realize it," said Casey. "I said, I don't think you realize how much these cracks define who you are."
"My crack?" said Ben, flippant.
"I see the way you don't fit together sometimes."
What Ben was thinking then was, Fuck that.
He doesn't want to be loved for being a fuck-up. Fuck awkwardness and its supposed charm; Ben could never mix the two, it was always one or the other. Ben wants to be loved because he wrote a fucking wicked movie with his best friend. He wants to be loved for making the best joke in the room, for that spontaneous yet hilarious one-liner no one was expecting. He wants to act, he wants to perform because that is how he has fun. He's a big proponent of the idea -- no, the fact -- that you are most yourself when you're happy. Ben only wants to be himself. He only wants for everyone to see him be himself so they can finally realize that this guy right here is worth their time. He doesn't want to be loved for his weaknesses.
Fuck you, Ben thought, because there is so much more to me than the way I fall apart, and you of all fucking people should know.
And there is a nagging sense of betrayal.
"You can't fool me, Affleck," said Casey, and that was how Ben knew Casey was on the other side of tipsy. Affleck. "I've known you all my life. You're a fuck-up." Casey pushed back his seat, making a grating scraping noise against the floor. He sauntered around to the other side of the table where Ben sat, and he put his hands on his little brother's shoulders. "The best thing," said Casey, and kissed him, a drunken press of lips against lips. "The best thing," he repeated, and kissed him again. Ben parted his lips and Casey dipped his tongue inside. There was that familiar rush in Ben's stomach. A familiar thrill, a thrum of anticipation that he felt to the tips of his fingers, which he rested on Casey's neck, right below the pulse points.
"The best thing in the world is for someone to realize you're a fuck-up," said Casey, unbuttoning Ben's shirt, "and they stay with you anyway."
+
So Ben is a victim of Casey's underdog-philia. He doesn't want to think about that. What he can't help thinking about, though, is how this will end. This thing between them, it's too bad to be true.
Amid the touch of tongues, the taste of semen, the feeling of being inside your other half, there is...
Ben doesn't want to think about this at all.
"There are two theories I have about how the universe works," said Casey. It's morning now. He's doing up his belt but his shirt is still somewhere on the bedroom floor. He paces while talking, while smoking a cigarette, like a character from a trashy novel about lust, life, and alcoholism. "All things being equal, left alone," says Casey, "things either tend towards equilibrium, or towards disorder. You see this everywhere in the world. There are feedback mechanisms in your body--in nature, right?--that maintain a certain stable condition. And then there is entropy."
Casey has somewhere to be today. Brunch meeting, networking, negotiating some minute Ocean's Twelve detail. Ben has the script for some Christmas movie to go through, but he has all day. All weekend, even. The sheets on this bed, Casey's bed, are heavy, and they drape over him and keep him warm as he watches his brother dress and philosophize. Their movements are languid this morning, slowed by the cooling temperature outside and their own procrastination.
"So, all things being equal," says Casey, "left alone, which direction do you think we would go?"
"What?"
"Will we hold the universe together or tear it apart?"
Ben stares at him. "I think..."
I think we will make the universe stand still, is what he's thinking. Ben lazily pulls himself to the foot of the bed, closer to Casey. We will re-organize the space-time continuum, because I can imagine us together and I can imagine us apart, but I refuse to dwell on the transition.
At the edge of the bed, Ben holds out his hand. Casey looks at it, contemplatively, like it's another thing to theorize about. It probably can be, but not in Ben's world.
Casey is late for his brunch meeting and no one cares. Back at the apartment, Ben sits in the living room in his bathrobe, script on his lap, pen in his hand, doodling the lyrics to songs that aren't about heartbreak. Outside, New York hustles and bustles its way through smog and local color, and as Ben watches it all from the window, coffee in hand, he wonders if stability and disintegration can maybe be the same thing.
+
- the flaming lips, 'do you realize?'
[end.]